My third child was born at
home on 1/9/90. We had originally planned to
give birth at the Maternity Center in Bethesda, MD., but when I realized
my due date was in January, (and given how unpredictable Maryland weather
can be in the winter!), my husband, Nelson, and I decided to have a
homebirth. Good choice!!

I had 16 days of on-again, off-again labor -- nothing difficult, just
enough that each day I thought, "This is it!" -- and then it
would stop
again! It was very frustrating. The night Bryanna was born,
we had
been out getting haircuts for the entire family. It had been a
terrible
day, weather-wise -- rain, then snow, then sleet on top of that. We
put
the other kids to bed, and went to bed ourselves, just thankful to be in
the house and out of that horrible weather. I awoke around
1:00 a.m.
with contractions again, and my immediate thought was that I was going to
lose yet another night of sleep from these stupid contractions! I
sat in
bed, watched the clock for an hour, and wondered if I would ever sleep
through the night again! My husband woke up around 2:00 a.m., asked
if I
was OK, and when I told him I was having contractions, his reply was,
"Again?" Then he fell back asleep! Around 3:00, he
woke up again,
started timing contractions for me, and we just sat in bed and talked.
At 4:00, he decided that since he was up anyway, he might as well go get
a shower, since his neck was still itchy from the haircut! As soon
as
Nelson got in the shower, and couldn't hear me, my contractions all of a
sudden sped up from 12 minutes apart, to about 2 1/2 minutes apart.
When
he got out of the shower, I was calling for him to call the midwife, call
the birth assistant, call our friends to come take care of the kids, call
EVERYBODY!

Nelson called the midwife, and got the answering service. While we
waited for the return call, we were busily trying to get the waterproof
sheet on the bed. The midwife called back about 15-20 minutes later,
and
she and my husband were calmly chatting on the phone, trying to decide where I was at in labor! I was saying, "Tell her to get off the
phone
and get over here!", but nobody was taking me too seriously!
While they
were talking, I felt like I needed to go to the bathroom, and so headed
off by myself. While sitting on the toilet, I passed a huge amount
of
mucous and bloody show with the first contraction, the second contraction
my water broke (right there in the toilet -- very convenient!), and then
I stood up to come back into the bedroom. With the next contraction,
I
grabbed the edge of the sink and the window ledge, leaned over, and the
baby's head started emerging, just that quick! My husband dropped
the
phone, ran into the bathroom, somehow managed to help me down onto the
floor, and caught the baby right there on the bathroom floor! She
was
all wrapped up in the cord -- around her neck, over and around her arm
and armpit, and then around her leg -- but the cord was VERY long and
loose, so there were no problems. Bryanna started crying almost
immediately, and it was unbelievable to watch her whole body take on that
pink color as she began breathing on her own.

At some point, Nelson helped me get into bed. The birth assistant,
Gail,
arrived first (nearly 45 minutes after the birth, due to the horrible
road conditions). She delivered the placenta, and just kept an eye
on
things until the midwife arrived. The midwife arrived shortly
thereafter
to do baby assessment, after-birth checks on everyone, and do a few minor
repairs.

I'm SO glad we decided to have her at home; if we hadn't, she
probably
would've been born in the car in that awful weather! It was an
awesome
experience, definitely not as we planned it, but incredibly exciting! Ten
years later, catching that baby remains as one of my husband's fondest
memories!